Skateboarding & Art with Steve Olson

     In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Olson was one of a small handful of skaters who changed the history of skateboarding forever. While skateboarding had shifted from the streets to backyard pools, Steve was there at the perfect time to create a name for himself. Known for his hardcore punk style, Olson won SkateBoarder Magazine’s Skater of the Year award in 1979.

Nowadays, Olson is 52 years old, still skating, and involved in the art world. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Olson to discuss skateboarding, art, and how the two of those relate to one another. After a night of far too much lovemaking to the bottle, my pains were swiftly eased and almost entirely absent when meeting Mr. Olson. He gave off so much positive energy that I can say without any reluctance that he was a hangover cure. Looking more like a weathered, yet handsome, version of Eddie Munster than an aged Jack Nicholson, Olson instantly made me feel like we were on the same level with his relaxed body language.

Olson seemed very excited that his sculpture would be in Shreveport. “At first they told me it was going to be temporary,” he said. “Temporary is whack. Let’s make it where it stands for awhile because it will bring in people from around the world. It’s going to be monumental because it’s never been built, and it will be accommodating to skateboarding because it’s a part of my life.”

While mutually agreeing this piece would bring more attention to the city, I imagined it also bringing in larger skateboard companies and teams to Shreveport when traveling through our state.

Skateboarders have a completely different eye for architecture and all things on the street. “A skateboarder looks at something and says I can actually do this or that on that rail or ledge, ” Olson said, adding that “the person who designed it didn’t imagine it for skateboarding.”

When I asked Olson what made his skateable art any different than basic architecture on the streets or a skate park, he said, “the only difference is that the design came from a dude that actually skateboards.”

There is not just one Olson that has made a name for himself in skateboarding. His son, Alex Olson, is very relevant in the skateboarding world today. It wasn’t hard to tell how proud Steve is of his son throughout our conversation. More than once would he talk about how his son had “mad pop,” and how he “had no idea where it came from.”

“I’m totally impressed with the new school,” Olson said. “A lot of the old school dudes now are saying grinding rails and jumping down stairs aren’t skating. What are you talking about? Yeah, it is, dude, and it’s just as gnarly! Let me see you do a 12 stair… you can’t. Your jealousy is really speaking and you’re lame…Skateboarding is continuously evolving. No one is developing a new pitch in baseball, but in skateboarding something is constantly evolving and becoming new.”

Many skateboarders become involved in art after their skateboarding careers slow down. This makes a lot of sense when involved in an industry where you are allowed to be a kid every day and ride a wooden toy for a living. When comparing the two, Olson said, “With skateboarding constantly changing and the invention of new tricks and styles, it’s the same as art. You’re making new things, and you’re constantly thinking of new ideas.”

Olson went on to say that the lines involved with skateboarding and most art forms are equal and that “they are line driven.”

In the ‘80s, skateboarding saw a drastic change and almost completely died out. Olson lived through its hiatus and saw it slowly make a comeback and seemed to wholeheartedly believe it wouldn’t come to that point again.

“I think it’s got such a strong stability now and is more accepted by the mainstream,” he said. “In the ‘60s, it was huge but thought of more as a toy. It died in the mid-‘60s. It came back in the ‘70s, and died in the early ‘80s. It went from doing 20 million dollars to 400,000 dollars. It happened again and again throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, but each time it grew the foundation went outward.”

Still psyched on skateboarding today, Olson never would have imagined he’d still be on a board at his age. Steve recalls, “I started skateboarding in the mid-‘60s because it was a toy for boys… just going down hills in Northern California and getting slammed and scraped because of the metal wheels. I was around 5, then I moved down to Southern California and dude…when urethane wheels came out, it was insane. It was like you were driving a Model-T and now you’re driving a Cadillac.”

It would seem pretty obvious that a man who has been immersed in skateboarding his whole life wouldn’t have a choice but for it to influence all of his surroundings. “I was introduced to a lot of things through skateboarding…from music, to art, to clothing, to politics, to everything,” Olson said. “In my art, I’m always trying to do something new…for me. Like maybe use a different material than most others used. That to me has a direct link to skateboarding.”

As part of SRAC’s UNSCENE! event, Steve Olson’s skateable art sculpture will be unveiled to the public on February 15 across from the Municipal Auditorium at an event running from 12 p.m.- sunset. Olson and a handful of other skateboarders will be in attendance skating the piece. The event is free to the public and will include an arts market, food trucks, and music. You can view Steve Olson’s GENERATIONLESS exhibition at Artspace right now.

For more information, visit unsceneshreveport.com or artspaceshreveport.com.